1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an upright vacuum cleaner. More particularly, the present invention relates to a locking/unlocking device for a dust-collector that is removably mounted in an upright vacuum cleaner, and an upright vacuum cleaner having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
An upright vacuum cleaner comprises a cleaner body having a motor as a vacuum generating source, a suction nozzle disposed under the cleaner body to draw in dust-laden air therethrough, a dust-collector to separate dust particles from the air drawn in through the suction nozzle, collect the separated dust particles and discharge a cleaned air to the outside.
The dust-collector is removably mounted in a mounting portion of the cleaner body. A user removes the dust-collector from the cleaner body to empty the dust-collector or repair the cleaner body. Meanwhile, when the vacuum cleaner cleans a large cleaning area, the dust-collector must be securely mounted in the cleaner body to be able to perform a cleaning operation smoothly. Therefore, a locking/unlocking device for the dust-collector is necessarily required.
The conventional dust-collector is secured to the cleaner body by a screw. However, an extra tool is required to dismount the dust-collector from the cleaner body, and it takes a large amount of time to drive or extract the screw. Therefore, a current upright vacuum cleaner has a lever formed on a cleaner body that can be simply operated to lock or unlock the dust-collector.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,385,810 (the '810 patent) discloses a lever 124 pivotably disposed at an upper wall of a dirt cup chamber and a latch plate 100 pivoting vertically in cooperation with a cam groove 126 formed on a body of the lever 124 when the lever 124 pivots. By pivoting the lever 124 from left to right and right to left, the latch plate 100 is moved downward and upward and thereby latches and unlatches a dirt cup 10.
However, the locking/unlocking device disclosed in the '810 patent has a very complicated structure. Also, a cam sleeve 102 is additional required to pivotably secure the lever 124 to an upper wall of the dirt cup chamber. Due to the complicated structure, a manufacturing cost is inevitably increased.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,816 (the '816 patent) discloses an operating lever 410 pivotably disposed at a lower wall of a dust-collecting chamber and a locking disk 420 pivotably connected with an upper portion of the operating lever 410. The operating lever 410 and the locking disk 420 have cams 460, 470, respectively, such that the locking disk 420 is moved vertically as the operating lever pivots, and thereby locks or unlocks the dust-collecting chamber.
However, the '816 patent further discloses a suction passage 210 and a discharging passage 220 disposed at a side or an upper portion of the dust-collecting chamber. Therefore, tubes 140, 150 fluidly communicating with the suction passage 210 and the discharging passage 220 inevitably become elongated. In an attempt to solve this problem, an upright vacuum cleaner has a suction passage and a discharging passage formed in a bottom of a dust-collector and thus has an air channel shortened. However, according to the '816 patent, since the operating lever 410 and the locking disk 420 are disposed on the lower wall of the dust-collecting chamber, it is difficult to dispose the suction passage and the discharging passage on the lower surface of the dust-collecting chamber.